Part 33 (2/2)
”That ought to hold it,” said Eric.
”That was only the beginning,” said his friend. ”What would hold it, resting on the top of the sand?”
”I'd thought of that,” admitted the boy, ”but I supposed the weight would be enough to drive it in.”
”Never,” the other said. ”The next step was to drive it down into the hard sand at the bottom of the bay. Father had made borings and found a true sea-bottom sand fifteen feet and a half below the level of the shoal. It was to that depth that the whole caisson had to be sunk.
”You remember that I told you there was an air-shaft in the middle of the caisson?”
”Yes.”
”Well, on the top of this air-shaft an air-lock was built. The water in the air-shaft was forced out by compressed air and the men entered the caisson.”
”Into the compressed air?”
”Yes. It takes a special kind of worker for the job. In the air-lock, you know, the men have to stay for a while before they enter the chamber, so as to get used to the compressed air gradually. Lots of people can't stand it.”
”Did you try it?”
”Yes. I asked Father and he wouldn't let me. But I slipped into the air-lock once and tried it, anyhow.”
”Well?”
”Not for me!” said his friend. ”I got out in less than five minutes. My head seemed bursting, and I was bleeding from the ears as well as the nose. But some of them, especially an old chap called Griffin, the foreman, didn't seem to mind it at all.
”As soon as the caisson was clear of water and the men were ready, they entered the caisson, crawled down the long ladder and began to dig away the sand. A large four-inch pipe led up the air-shaft and over the sea.
The sand and small stones were shoveled into a chamber from which a valve opened into the pipe and the compressed air drove up the sand and stones like a volcano into the sea. The work proceeded rapidly and without a hitch until the caisson had been sunk thirteen feet and a half. Then, when only two feet from the total desired depth, an unexpected and terrible thing happened.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE BOAT WENT INTO MATCHWOOD.”
A sudden tempest breaking upon Smith's Point Lighthouse in the early stages of its construction.
Courtesy of McClure's Magazine.]
”At three o'clock in the afternoon a low hissing was heard in the caisson, and with a quick flicker the candles first burned low, then flamed anew, the color of the flame a lambent green. For a few moments none of the men realized what had happened, and stood there, stupefied and staggering. An acrid burning sensation gripped the men by the throat and they were stricken blind. Suffering terrible agony, every man managed to climb the long ladder, each step of which seemed an eternity, and entered the air-lock. Ten hale and hearty men had entered the caisson, ten wrecks emerged, the flesh of the inside of their throats raw and their eyes swollen and reddened beyond recognition.
”A telegram was sent to the Lighthouse Inspector of the district, and the doctor attached to the building party sent for medical help. Next day the inspector came down, with a.s.sistants, and accompanied by another physician and a nurse. They found that the caisson workers had tapped a vein of sulphuretted hydrogen, probably due to the decay of some deep beds of vegetable matter, such as sea-weed. One of the a.s.sistants to the inspector, who was a clever young scientist, suggested that after a day or two it might be possible to enter the caisson again, but that it would be necessary to proceed with extreme care, as another pocket might be tapped, with a recurrence of the danger.
”Although before them, in their bunks, lay their ten comrades, when Father called for volunteers, fourteen men came forward. They knew, they could not help knowing, that they were not only going into possible danger, but into absolutely certain torture. Their comrades lay there--it was not certain that some of them would ever see again, it was not certain that some of them would recover. Absolute agony of the most horrible kind awaited them. But the lighthouse had to be built. It is easy to make a problematic sacrifice of life, it is hard to walk without shrinking into a chamber of awful pain. From this ordeal these fourteen men did not shrink.
”They were headed by Griffin, the old caisson foreman, who had a record of having withstood the greatest pressure possible, a pressure of eight and a half atmospheres. They went down at nine o'clock in the morning.
The pain must have been fearful, but they stuck to it to the end. One man went through the air-lock and got food, returning to his comrades.
He had been down four hours, and his condition was so terrible that the doctor ordered him to stay out of the lock.
”'I'm not that breed,' he said in a horrid whisper over his raw and swollen throat, 'I'm goin' to see it through.'
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